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A B.C. addictions expert is warning people not to become hysterical about W-18, but is urging drug users to protect themselves by taking tiny test doses of any opioid they buy illegally.

W-18 is a synthetic opioid painkiller developed in Alberta decades ago and abandoned, but now it's showing up again, and health officials are warning it's 100 times more powerful that Fentanyl, which has already become a health emergency.

Police in Delta yesterday warned people to be extra vigilant after they confiscated drugs containing W-18 after searching labs in Burnaby, Richmond and Surrey.

A few tiny salt-like grains of fentanyl are enough to get a person high. W-18 is even more potent.

"It's a very scary situation. We certainly don't know a lot about it quite yet... there is the potential for it to have devastating consequences," said Seonaid Nolan, an addictions specialist and research scientist with the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDs.

"But you want to avoid mass hysteria or over-sensationalizing, but [drug users need to recognize] what you may be ingesting you never quite know," said Nolan.

100 times more toxic than fentanyl

Nolan urges addicts and users to take smaller test doses of any street drug they buy, to protect against taking the potentially deadly substance.

"See if the potency is what you are used to," she said.

W-18 can be smoked, snorted or injected and has similar effects to any other opioid, but specifics on the experimental drug are sketchy.